Summer is a strange beast for schoolteachers.

There is a buildup of tension and expectation leading up to the last days of school, but for me, there is a wad of frustration just the other side of Memorial Day.

There is so much to do, so much that I need to get done; I only get a small portion of the needful things done and a smaller fraction of the things I want to do put on the 'completed' list by the end.

I've gotten a few things out of the way already, but the money factor is a huge problem. There is not enough of it to spread over the list of things that are really necessary, let alone on a trip to the ocean that I sorely wish we could take. I haven't been to a beach in eleven years. It probably wasn't a good idea to introduce me to the sea when I was a child, I spent too much formative time there years ago. Deep inside, I think there is a part of me that feels cheated by the long absence of the ocean from my soul.

So summer thrums by for me, summer school follows a week or so of vacation closely shadowed again by another teaching stint, and I get very little done besides laundry and children discipline. The Notch Peak trip will survive a long time in my memory, especially since it was the first time I was able to take one of my kids, but there is a part of me that seeks for more. More adventure, more questing, and more big water.

Gratitude for what has already been received is easy to talk about, but a bit harder to work into my schedule of things to do. But I'll keep working on it.